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À Fonds Perdus

His collection included more than one hundred press photos published between 1910 and 1970 by daily newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Herald, the Denver Post, the Detroit News, etc.

There is a general idea that press photographs were not retouched before digital technology or software like Photoshop came along. This collection shows that press photos have always been retouched before publication, if only for reframing purposes or to balance contrasts.

This exhibit is unique because it does not show the final results of the press photos after being retouched, but rather the process an editor must go through to make the photos fit on the newspaper page the best. Instead of just glamorous photos of celebrities on an old newspaper page, I liked how the markings were still on the print of the celebrity and that the photos in their original form were displayed.

It was one of the more bizarre exhibits, but was still very much sophisticated. It showed the hard work that an editor must go through to make the sizing and contrast correct within the newspaper, but, because it was not the finished product, I did not take as much time to think about what each photo was trying to portray. The blue walls made the images stand out as. I eventually would like to be a photo editor of a newspaper, so seeing the processes that used to occur was extremely interesting. The process may have been different than it is now, but the same type of editing is still being performed.